Kantorow / Lozakovich / Power / Julien-Laferrière

• Classical Music

This piano quartet proves that you do not have to belong to the same generation to make superb music together. Pianist Alexandre Kantorow, to whom the Elbphilharmonie is dedicating a special focus this season, and violinist Daniel Lozakovich have been on a meteoric rise for several years and had already reached major venues by their mid-twenties. Cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière and violist Lawrence Power have used their advanced career of 10 and 25 years respectively for exciting solo projects, chamber music and much more. Young blood is now encountering great experience in the contrasting Piano Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 by Johannes Brahms.
The two piano quartets by Brahms could hardly be more different. The second is sunny, peppered with references and echoes of composer colleagues from across the centuries in the playful scherzo and it closes with an energetic Hungarian-inspired finale. The third piano quartet, conversely, arguably handles the unrequited love of the composer for Clara Schumann – the pianist and wife of his close friend Robert Schumann. Passionate and sombre at the beginning, then wallowing in melancholy and ultimately serene at the end – Brahms himself described the piece as having arisen in a »Werther mood«. It is fortunate that, considering his sorrow, the composer did not choose the same fate as Goethe‘s hero in the famous epistolary novel.

PERFORMERS

Daniel Lozakovich violin

Lawrence Power viola

Victor Julien-Laferrière violoncello

Alexandre Kantorow piano

PROGRAM

Johannes Brahms
Piano Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 26

- Interval -

Johannes Brahms
Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60